“It’s hope. Bottom line it’s hope for terminally ill patients that have nowhere else to turn.”

Sunday, May 13, 2018

WASHINGTON —U.S.Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, appeared on Sharyl Attkisson’s ‘Full Measure’ Sunday to discuss his Right to Try legislation that is currently pending in the House of Representatives. Right to try legislation ensures that terminally ill patients, their doctors, and pharmaceutical manufacturers are allowed to try investigational treatments when no alternatives exist.

Excerpts from Senator Johnson’s appearance are below and video can be found here.

“One of the namesakes on right to try, Matt Bellina, former Navy pilot, has ALS and he has two drug manufacturers that have experimental drugs that would qualify, that they will give him access to with right to try once they have that liability protection. They won’t give him access to that under the expanded access program with the FDA. Matt Bellina is saying, a vote against right to try, is literally a vote to kill me.”

“In the Senate one hundred percent of Senators, we passed this by unanimous consent, and then it moved over to the House and they didn’t act on it.”

“There are forces in the House, I can’t identify them, that are trying to undermine this. I’m afraid that every day that goes by, those forces might become more and more successful. This is our opportunity…it was Representative Pallone that lobbied against it, as did former Speaker Pelosi. If Democrats get control of the House, right to try dies, and that would be a travesty.”

“It makes no sense to me why anybody would be opposed to this, it’s about freedom, this is about hope.”

The Johnson-Donnelly bill that passed the Senate by unanimous consent on Aug. 3, 2017, can be found here.

Forty states already have passed right to try bills on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis.